N. Korean Energy Aid Talks Kick Off in Panmunjeom

Kim Myong Gil, center left in front, minister at the Noreth Korea’s mission to the United Nations, cosses border from North to South with South Korea’s deputy nuclear negotiator Lim Sung-nam, center right in front, to attend the 2nd Economy and Energy Coopperation Working Group Meeting in Panmunjom Tuesday. Negotioations were set to begin Tuesday amont the two Koreas, the United States and regional partners to iron out the details of an aid-for-disarmament deal with North Korea. / AP-Yonap


N. Korean Energy Aid Talks Kick Off in Panmunjeom

By Jung Sung-ki
Staff Reporter

Working-level officials from six nations involved in talks over North Korea's nuclear weapons program met Tuesday to discuss details on energy aid to the North in return for its disablement of its nuclear facilities.
The two-day meeting opened at the truce village of Panmunjeom in the Demilitarized Zone that divides the Korean Peninsula.
They discussed ways to ship and store 950,000 tons of heavy fuel oil or equivalent aid to the North, which is known to have a storage capacity of only 200,000 tons a year, officials from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade said.
The energy assistance is part of 1 million tons of heavy oil promised to the communist state under an aid-for-disarmament deal struck in the six-way talks in Beijing in February.
The talks aimed at ending North Korea's nuclear ambition involving the two Koreas, the United States, China, Japan and Russia.
Under the accord, Pyongyang is required to close and eventually disable its plutonium-producing Yongbyon reactor and submit a complete list of its nuclear programs this year.
In return, the North is to receive 1 million tons of heavy oil or equivalent assistance from five other nations, but the North has yet to ask for any alternatives, the officials said.
South Korea has shipped the first 50,000 tons of heavy oil to North Korea in exchange for the North's shutdown of the Yongbyon reactor late last month. China has also offered to begin shipping another 50,000 tons in mid-August, according to reports.
A team of monitors from the International Atomic Energy Agency is now in the Stalinist state to verify the shutdown.
A ministry official said on condition of anonymity that one of the options on the table is for North Korea to take credit or promissory notes for the set amount of heavy oil or equivalent energy and use them at its convenience.
The cost of the energy aid will be shared among South Korea, the United States, China and Russia, he said.
Japan is refusing to participate in the aid program, insisting that the issue of the Japanese citizens abducted by Pyongyang decades ago be addressed before any assistance is given to the poverty-stricken North.
Seoul's top nuclear envoy Chun Young-woo was optimistic about the North's denuclearization process.
``After many twists and turns, the six-party talks process has been given momentum, while skepticism has been disappearing,'' Chun told reporters upon arrival at the truce village. ``We anticipate the denuclearization process will make rapid progress, but there will be some obstacles and pitfalls, too.''
Chun attached importance to holding ``the first international meeting'' in Panmunjom as he saw the village as representing a particular legacy of division at the end of the 1950-53 Korean War.
At the end of the latest round of six-party talks last month, the countries agreed to convene all the working group talks before a new round is held early next month.
A China-hosted working group meeting on denuclearization is expected to be held in the Chinese city of Shenyang next week, while a working group on establishing a peace mechanism in Northeast Asia will be held the week after next, officials said.
Christopher Hill, the chief U.S. nuclear envoy, said last week that a working group meeting on the normalization of ties between Washington and Pyongyang would likely take place in a Southeast Asian country in late August.
gallantjung@koreatimes.co.kr